This page is organized with the most recent entries at the top, to
save frequent visitors from doing a lot of scrolling. Later, I expect I will break
the entries out into separate pages about twice a month to reduce page
loading time.

By the way, as in years past, Home Depot is kicking off their Mow Down Pollution
event this week. Trade in your gas-burning mowers and line trimmers, working or not,
for up to a $100 credit on a more earth-friendly alternative. Less gasoline burned
means less green house gases produced.

Now here's the hard part:
send an e-mail to Premier Dalton McGuinty asking him to provide climate
leadership for Canada and the world by phasing out our dirty coal plants
before the G20 Summit. That's it. If we can convince the Ontario
government to do this, we will reduce Ontario greenhouse gas emissions
from electrical generation by over 70%.

For those of you in provinces other than Ontario that burn coal to
produce electricity, perhaps an e-mail to your premier asking them to
explain their stance on climate change, and how it aligns with burning coal.

What's this got to do with greenhouse gas emissions? It takes a lot
of energy to pump water to your house, and to treat it so it is safe
to drink. That energy comes primarily in the form of electricity, and
in this province, a goodly chunk of that is still produced by burning
coal and natural gas. So, reducing your water consumption reduces the
electricity used, and reduces the greenhouse gas emissions produced. Oh,
and it will also reduce your water bill.

I had not planned on dealing with water conservation and efficiency
until later in the year, but the Ottawa announcement today made me think
I should address it briefly today.

In short, while windows may improve the aesthetics of your home, and may
provide a great view of the outdoors, they are going to cost you money on
your heating bill, and likely on your cooling bill as well.

Arguing that we can't take any action on climate change because the
technology isn't ready yet is shameful. It's the equivalent of Britain saying we
won't live up to our treaty obligations in 1939 because we haven't built up our
military inventory yet. The way we encourage action is to set the targets, and
follow up by actually doing something. Further, we don't need any additional
technology to get started, we have technology sitting on the shelf that we have
not come close to exploiting to its potential.

If we want a habitable planet for future generations, it is in our own self-interest
to start taking action now, at least on taking the easy wins. Finishing may not
be as easy, but putting off getting started will only make the completion of the
task more difficult and take much longer.

As most Canadians live in climes that require some degree of heating for
comfort and survival at this time of year and the coming months, tips for the
next little while will likely focus on reducing heating fuel use, and by
extension, heating bills. Most of us use fossil fuels for our heating
(heating oil, natural gas, propane, waste oil). Some of us use wood,
liquid biofuel of some kind or solar,
but even these are frequently backed up with a fossil heating fuel.

As we are just starting out, we'll start off slow and easy, and get to
the more interesting ideas a bit later.

Slippers and socks. In our homes, heated air rises to the ceiling, leaving
the colder, denser air near the floor. As a result, our feet get cold
first. As our feet are also the part of our body furthest from the heart,
they tend to get less warmth from blood flow, especially as we get older and
blood vessels tend to constrict and reduce blood flow to the extremities.
So, the first line of defense in keeping us comfortable in cooler surroundings
is making sure our feet are warm and cosy. Make sure you have warm socks and
slippers to insulate your feet and lower legs, and use them. Then you will
still feel comfortable when you get the courage to turn down the thermostat.
(It's a delightful 17 degrees Celsius in the room where I'm writing this,
resplendent in my warm socks, slippers and fleece clothing.)

That wasn't such a life-shattering, end-of-life-as-we-know-it exercise,
was it?

Feedback

Did you find the information here helpful? Agree? Disagree? Looking for something more?
Does something deserve more coverage? Please
let me know,
and I will try to help with future additions to the page.